Immortality
by Odi et amo
Summary: It became obvious after a short period of time that his ward was immortal. With immortality, comes an awful price. Sometimes, the price is more than one is willing to pay. Not everyone can be saved. Sesshomaru learned that too late.


It became obvious after a short period of time that his ward was immortal.

He wasn't sure how it had been done exactly, seeing as tenseiga was for healing and resurrection, not for prolonging life, but he didn't particularly care. Truth be told, the stoic demon had no problem with taking care of the one creature besides Ah-Un that did not grate on his nerves. Her antics and questions amused him greatly and somehow the thought of eternity with the bright child was a pleasing one.

It had taken him nearly three years to notice that while her mind and emotions developed, her body did not. He had been leaning against a tree, one leg bent, one outstretched in his customary manner, when his eyes had wandered over to her sleeping form. Idly he noticed that she had not grown taller, her hair wasn't any longer, and her face hadn't begun losing some of its childish pudge like most girls at the age of ten. She looked exactly the same as she had when he revived her.

At that point another revelation entered his mind.

Her cuts and bruises healed at the same pace that his own did. Granted, his were fewer and further between, but it always took less than a day for them to heal, unless the wound was greater. He could distinctly recall a time a time when she had sprained her ankle, only to be running about as if nothing had happened. It had been odd, but he had removed the incident from mind. Over the years her scent had not changed on whit. She still smelled of child, innocence, and those daisies that so many human disliked, but both he and the girl found pleasing.

Almost as soon as the notion of her immortality entered his head he dismissed it. Perhaps she was just taking longer to grow or maybe she was destined to be short, even after she cam into womanhood.

But she never did.

Four years later, at fourteen years old, she was still in the body of a seven year old. Her mind had changed, matured, but her body had not. Oddly enough her emotions had become more erratic as well. There were times she cried for no reason, and there were times she disobeyed him, although the disobedience was never great. It was typically something along the lines of her not staying indoors when she was told to do so, or entering his study was he was at work.

And so the first one hundred years passed in reasonable peace.

One day he awoke to her crying and sitting next to his bed. She held out her hands in a beseeching manner.

"Sesshomaru…what is wrong with me?" She cried out. It was the first time he had ever heard her say his name without his honorific title.

"Why haven't I grown!"

Before he could answer she ran out of his room and back to her own. He sat in silence, pondering her words. It had never occurred to him that she was upset at her lack of physical maturity. It had never bothered him seeing as their rare verbal sparring or conversations always left him feeling as though he had spoken to an adult.

The incident was never mentioned and the use of his title resumed.

Over the years he noticed his immortal charge had become angry with herself and envious of older women. He would silently follow her to her room and watch as she stripped nude in front of her mirror and scowl at her reflection, poking her chest and hips to look for change. There never was any.

The seventeenth century came and went, and neither of them had changed. Her little escapades in front of the mirror had stopped, and she seemed to accept her life as an immortal. They rarely spoke, preferring to sit together, watching humans as they became more powerful, diverse, and multiplied. The youkai race dying out from being over hunted, and he knew he was one of the last.

During those times together she would often crawl into his lap, or lean against his side and wrap her childish arms about his waist. He never protested. She wasn't human anymore, but neither was she a demon.

Then one day she was gone. A servant entered the dining hall; curtsied, and informed him the Rin-Sama had left was nowhere to be found. He was a little bothered that she would just leave him without a goodbye, or at least saying where she was going, but the feeling didn't persist for long. He had things to do. With the coming of banks he had been forced to put his large fortune there for safekeeping from suddenly more intelligent thieves. He was weary of always having to dispose of them. The contact alone was too much.

His home was redone at the turn of the twentieth century, not only in keeping with the standards of the time, but made larger as well with parts of it preserved the way it had been for hundreds of years. Rin's bedroom was left untouched.

Koga visited, remarkably enough, and he brought news of Rin. She had begun writing historical essays under a false name and age to make a living. Sesshomaru was surprised that she was still alive. He had expected it, but for some reason the fact that she was still, for all intents and purposes, a child, had kept him from actually believing it.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century he saw her again. I was actually her coming to him, the now reclusive author of several "fictional" stories about youkai and miko's, and he welcomed her gratefully.

She calmly sat across from him.

"Sesshomaru." Her hands were folded meekly in her lap as her legs crossed beneath her on the couch. The title was gone again. She looked him in the eye.

"Sesshomaru, I wish for you to kill me."

He was shocked at the request, although his face never betrayed it. His face never revealed anything he did not choose. He calmly answered her.

"Why?"

"Because I have already lived out the life I was meant to have, the life you gave me, and several life spans beyond that. I am an old woman inside a body that does not show what I really am. I am weary, and I am sick of everything, as I have been for centuries."

Her chin was tilted upward, showing her pride and defiance, while her eyes glittered like sad, little, brown gems. Her dress had ridden up to her small thighs.

"Rin. I cannot do.."

"You will not, is what you mean. You and I both know that you are perfectly capable of killing me. Here. Now. This very moment. It is your lack of will to do so that stops you."

She was suddenly off of the small couch and on top of him, her legs straddling his lap and her hands on his face. The touch was intimate, like that of lovers. The only thing was that she had never been his lover, nor would she ever be. She was a child. Her eyes sparkled with sudden passion and violence.

"Kill me."

"No."

"Yes."

"It does not please me to do so."

"You selfish bastard."

She slapped him.

"Kill me Sesshomaru. Kill me if you ever loved me."

"What if I never did love you?"

"Then you should kill me, because it would not bother you so much if it didn't"

"This Sesshomaru is not bothered."

Her hands ran into his hair, making him pull his head back a little to avoid having it pulled.

"Yes you are. You're tense, your eyes have taken on their typical cold stare that I know so well, and you have taken to referring to yourself in the third person. You always do that when bothered or angry."

"And how would you know?"

"I have lived with you for over four hundred years. I have loved you as a daughter loves a father, and I have desired to love you as a woman love a man."

He was shocked at this revelation. "The only thing that ever held me back was this accursed body. I am seven years old and I am five hundred. I know how a woman feels; only I will never be able to act upon those feelings! I am cursed!"

Sesshomaru shook his head.

"Then I guess I am as well." He answered back. She lapsed into silence and he continued. "After all, I am just as immortal as you are."

"You are grown Sesshomaru. I am...I am a little girl."

She suddenly began sobbing, and collapsed against his chest, burying her face in the white silk of his shirt. He took it in without protest, positive that this would end as soon as it had begun. Soon she would be smiling the still innocent yet oddly cynical smile, calling him by his title (he always liked her to say his name with his title for some reason) and sitting with him like father and daughter would, watching the world go by in all it's splendor. Life would return to its norm, even though it had been years since normal had left.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't become aware of what was happening until he felt cold air on his chest.

He looked down and every muscle in his body tensed right as her mouth landed on his and her hands slid up his chest.

He flung her off of him abruptly and stood, wiping a hand across his mouth. She looked up at him, a cold smile on her small face. Suddenly she was no longer Rin. Suddenly she was a stranger. Neither girl or woman, friend nor foe, but something else. _Someone else._

Her head cocked to the side.

"What is it? Not woman enough for you Sesshomaru? Am I not curvy enough? Or maybe women don't turn you on at all?"

He glared down at her, noticing details he hadn't before. Her outfit was a mock schoolgirls, specifically designed to enhance even her diminutive figure and give the impression that she was merely an oddly proportionate midget from the back. Her hair was up like a geisha's would be, with elaborate twists, braids and knots, and her boots came up to her knees. He could see fishnet gloves on her arms which only came over the thumb, and she was wearing black eyeliner with pale red lipstick. If he hadn't known the true age her body was he would say she was a little whore. But he knew it wasn't true. It could never be true. She was Rin, his Rin, and she was perfect, with no flaws.

But that Rin was gone now. Before him now was another Rin, a twisted Rin. She was bitter and sad, angry and confused, everything she was never supposed to be.

She stood and walked towards him and he could swear she was taller than before. Or maybe she had always come to his waist and her being only knee-high was just a dream he had once. He never paid any attention anymore.

Her head tipped backwards and she looked into his eyes, the little girl he knew back in her dark depths.

He reached out a clawed hand for her, an offer to return to they way they had been. She didn't take it.

Instead she twisted around and ran out of the study as fast as her legs could carry her. He knew where she was going. She was headed for her room.

He ran after her, his body slow from years of idleness even though it had not lost it's muscular frame. He watched as she tore the pins and bows out of her hair, letting it fall free. Her boots flew off, and her little jacket fell to the ground, suddenly causing her to appear as a child would. She ran straight for his room and slammed the door in his face.

It was open almost before it had shut, the wood shredding as his stunned and angry glare saw her head straight for his Tokijin. It had been placed in a display stand on its side, right above Tenseiga.

She impaled herself on it before he had time to do more than grab her skirt to try and stop her. She died instantly.

Almost desperately he pulled her off of it and laid her on the floor, reaching for Tenseiga all the while.

His hand grasped the hilt when it happened.

A sharp pain stole across his chest in the same spot his heart was, the same spot where the sword had gone through on her. The pain was unbelievable and he fell to his knees, one hand on his chest, the other on Tenseiga. Another wave of pain hit when he tried to pull the sword out, and his vision swam red. He was unaware of it but a hole had appeared in the same spot hers was, blood as red as hers flowing out in rivulets and streams.

He pulled again, this time succeeding in getting the sword out of it's case, but he couldn't lift it. His body had already lost too much blood.

He realized that as he collapsed on the floor next to her.

His last thought was a realization.

She _**was** _taller.

She was aging at the pace he did.

If she had waited a few hundred years, maybe three hundred, she would have had the body she wanted.

Fin.

oooooooooo

Mmmkay. I know I should be working on my "Petals" fic, but this idea popped into my head and I just couldn't get it out. I _had_ to write it. I mean, the concept of Rin as an immortal, and a tragic, unhappy one at that was just too odd to not share.

The reason Sesshomaru died is because Tenseiga had connected their life spans at the time of her mortal death. They had pretty much become one, even though they occupied separate bodies. The only difference was that Rin's mind aged just as a normal human one would, meaning she went through a mental puberty while her body stayed the same. She at this point, was no longer a child like her body proclaimed her to be, but a full grown woman, with a woman's thoughts and desires. At least, that's what my idea was.

Rin became embittered with the thought that she would stay one age forever, so bitter that she didn't notice that she was aging. Sesshomaru, being him, never really notices that he ages. After all, most people don't until the wrinkles show up and then they get obsessed with their age. He was still too young to care, and he wouldn't care anyways. He's Sesshomaru, the master of bland facial expressions and not caring.

Ah, well. I hope you enjoyed this little take on their relationship. It probably sucks story-wise, but review anyways. They help with the work if you critique and they make me happy because I like people reading my crummy writing.

Love,

Odi et Amo.


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